Willie Collum, Gordon Duncan, the SFA and Sky Sports have completed their VAR stitch up of Celtic’s League Cup semi-final victory.
Nick Walsh, Steven McLean and Andrew Dallas had a number of big decisions to make. On the VAR Review they dissected FOUR of them. Four incidents were reviewed with the emphasis on two driven from Ibrox by their legacy media partners. Four key incidents where Celtic were denied justice were ignored.
12 DAYS OF MOURNING
Twelve days on from the match Kev Thelwell is talking about the dangerous precedent of the Auston Trusty booking. The VAR Review delivered 5 minutes 50 seconds. Tat incident led the show.
Every angle and aspect was covered. Strangely no reference was made to Steven Fletcher being booked in August 2022 for a kick to Joe Hart’s head. The Celtic goalkeeper continued after being stitched up and bandaged.
No reference was made to Connor Barron’s running Kung-Fu kick on a St Mirren player last season.
The brutal assault on Johnny Kenny by Derek Cornelius was given 2 minutes 30 seconds. Nearly halting before Mohamed Diomade kneed the Celtic player on the head.
There was no escaping the red card given to Thelo Aasgaard for his waist high assault on Tony Ralston.
IBROX AGENDA
The penalty awarded against Celtic was discussed in the context of why Ralston wasn’t given a second yellow card. Again answering the Ibrox agenda.
There was no explanation given over the dubious selection of the image and VAR lines selected to disallow an own goal from Nicky Raskin.
Funnily enough Collum went into great detail explaining the mistakes made by VAR lines in the St Mirren v Hibs match. Fortunately they came up with the right outcome by default. It would have been nice to get the same detail on the Raskin own goal.
Similarly there was no mention of the penalty claims for an attack on Reo Hatate and the handball of a cross by Michel-Ange Balikwisha.
Duncan is of course a Motherwell fan. From his Radio Clyde base he is climbing the ladder at Sky Sports and the SFA. Two organisations utterly dedicated to pushing the O** F*** myth.
SUMMARY OF CONTENT
VAR lines used to disallow Raskin own goal- ZERO COVERAGE
Jack Butland and Auston Trusty- 5 minutes 50 seconds
Derek Cornelius yellow card on Johnny Kenny- 2 minutes 30 seconds
Mohamed Diomande knee on Johnny – ZERO COVERAGE
Thelo Aasgaard assault on Tony Ralston- 2 minutes 10 seconds
Penalty against Ralston- 4 minutes
Mikey Moore penalty on Reo Hatate- ZERO COVERAGE
Cornelius handball on Michel-Ange Balikwisha cross- ZERO COVERAGE
Michael Nicholson believes in quietly lobbying behind the scenes on refereeing matters. Which is why Celtic have had Don Robertson in charge of four of their first 11 SPFL Premiership matches.
NOTE: No Scottish referees have been selected by UEFA for any of the first four rounds of Champions League fixtures. 18 matches are played Tuesday and Wednesday with Scottish referees filling up the Thursday slots.
The excuse given by Gordon Duncan for ignoring this penalty incident on his radio show was that TV didn’t highlight it and it slipped under the radar (even though Nick Walsh DID highlight it) what is the excuse for the VAR review not discussing it? https://t.co/IXEMLq10aK
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) November 14, 2025
Why is there still a stony silence from the Celtic board, it’s like they are terrified to upset sevco or the sfa, mm I wonder why that is,5 way agreement, survival lie, sevco and sfa have Celtic board by the baws.
Editor: Nicholson won’t want to upset anyone as he anticipates three of his beloved O** F*** matches between January and September.